The most important thing I learned after working for Starbucks for 16 years is that I’m passionate about facilitation. In every role I had there (and there were a lot of them,) I developed my collaboration values and style. Whether I was hiring diverse teams and developing new store leaders as a store manager or creating an inclusive environment for career development as a corporate engagement manager, I got to be influenced by an extremely diverse cross section of humans.

I wasn’t always expected to act as a facilitator, but would often find myself providing direction when it felt missing. I didn’t want to follow along with the typical corporate-style processes where people would typically half-listen to a single person’s ideas, accept them without question and then attempt to deliver. It became clear to me that, unlike most hierarchical teams in the business world, human-centered teams develop stronger working relationships, create more inclusive new concepts, and consistently improve everyone’s day-to-day experiences.

But even if we can agree that good collaboration determines the success of our work, why is it so hard to work together sometimes?

Bad workplaces exist.

It’s easy for teams to slip into automatic, dysfunctional patterns, particularly when everyone in the group is smart, motivated, and valued for their singular expertise. Sometimes, without realizing it, experts are so focused on “best practices” that they lose sight of untapped potential. Most importantly, leaders may not yet have the tools that enable collaboration in healthy or psychologically safe ways.

These missteps are avoidable—as long as leaders and teams pay a little more attention to how inclusive collaboration, simple and predictable routines, and human-centered rituals help create environments that support their people.